StarCraft II

As I mentioned a bit ago, I'm almost entirely through my game backlog for the first time in half a decade. Of course that means in the coming months I'll need a new game and I'm thinking that'll be StarCraft II: The Complete Trilogy. It's $59.99 US off of Battle.net now, but I know it goes on sale periodically.

Now, I know several of you have played through at least StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, and I'm curious about what you think of the game and if you'd recommend it? I will give the Starter Edition a whirl before I buy, but I'd love for your opinions.

I was a huge fan of Starcraft and Starcraft: Brood War back in the day, and loved Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos even more. I used to play 1v1 over Battle.net Classic all the time, though this time I suspect my focus will be more the Campaigns, skirmish against the AI, and maybe even Co-Op with my father if he gets the game down the road. Did I read right that StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void includes a new kind of Co-Op mode, and not just 2v2 against the AI in skirmish?

Also, Battle.net 2.0, is that accessed via in-game or from some kind of client? I see there's a Battle.net Desktop App that can be downloaded now, and the description makes it sound similar-ish to, say, the Steam client. Anyone use it and is that generally what it is?

I'd also strongly recommend the Dawn of War games as well, Blizzard borrowed heavily from Warhammer 40k, so most of what they have in their games would be familiar (Terrans taken from Space Marines, Zerg from Tyranids, Protoss from Eldar). The first game would be most familiar as it has some base building and whatnot, but I loved DoW2 as it was more battle-focused, you'd train your units from one building, then get to fighting right away. The entire DoW series usually goes on sale for some pretty good prices during the big Steam sales, I think I got the first game and its expansions (3 of them), and the second game plus it's expansions (2) for around $20.

I kind of want to try out SC2 at some point, but DoW2 has really spoiled me by showing you really don't need the initial base building and management to have a good RTS game, and I really enjoy just getting out to the battlefield and getting my war on as soon as possible.

Question for Sintacs...or anyone that knows The old RTS Dune 2 and dune 2000 seemed to be cloned by Blizzard with there Orcs and humans and tides of darkness. Seriously anyone who has play these games they really are identical ( like they just kept the engine and swapped out the skins) ... are their any other RTS games that also cloned this game play?

I heard that too...Not sure if it was true but I heard Warhammer rejected it, wanted something different or some such. So Blizzard tweaked it and ended up making one of the all time most sucessful Brands in gaming....if that story is true....wow did Warhammer ever drop the ball on that one.

I'd also strongly recommend the Dawn of War games as well, Blizzard borrowed heavily from Warhammer 40k, so most of what they have in their games would be familiar (Terrans taken from Space Marines, Zerg from Tyranids, Protoss from Eldar). The first game would be most familiar as it has some base building and whatnot, but I loved DoW2 as it was more battle-focused, you'd train your units from one building, then get to fighting right away. The entire DoW series usually goes on sale for some pretty good prices during the big Steam sales, I think I got the first game and its expansions (3 of them), and the second game plus it's expansions (2) for around $20.

I kind of want to try out SC2 at some point, but DoW2 has really spoiled me by showing you really don't need the initial base building and management to have a good RTS game, and I really enjoy just getting out to the battlefield and getting my war on as soon as possible.

I actually tried the Dawn of War II demo some years back and I wasn't too keen on it. A buddy of mine loves the series though!

Question for Sintacs...or anyone that knows The old RTS Dune 2 and dune 2000 seemed to be cloned by Blizzard with there Orcs and humans and tides of darkness. Seriously anyone who has play these games they really are identical ( like they just kept the engine and swapped out the skins) ... are their any other RTS games that also cloned this game play?

Dune 2 is pretty much credited as the grandfather of the RTS genre, just as Doom is for FPS.

Westwood then went on to do the Command and Conquer series, of course, and Blizzard made Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, which was a Dune 2 clone. Of course after that Blizzard started doing their own thing and now they're generally considered _the_ RTS company.

@Rajio it was rumored for a long time and talked about by an ex Blizzard dev at one point confirming it. Blizzard wanted to make a Warhammer game, and were in talks with getting it done, but the deal fell through so Blizzard changed around some assets and made it into Warcraft. Blizzard wanted full control of the direction of the story and whatnot, but they couldn't have that with Warhammer. There was some better articles around that I'd read before, can only find some Kotaku stuff from years back talking about it now though:

Nice. What are your feelings on the balance between them? The official board is crapping all over "Legacy of the Void," saying it's really screwed up the game. Seems people think "Wings of Liberty" is the most balanced version.

Each expansion brings a different balance between the units. You have to play each race a little differently. The new units for each race changes the balance of power and your tactics have to be different. What works in vanilla SCII won't work in wings of liberty for example. Most of that crying is people who can't adapt or recognize the need to. They want things to be added in the expansion without it 'breaking' what works for them. In short, they don't understand strategy and battlefield dynamics. they just understand rote playbooks and that is why they think things are 'broken' and complain infinitely.

Similar to how so many people complained about halo wars, with their complaints boiling down to "these things about it are not the same as starcraft" ... like no shit. change your approach and win.